I agree with David (Freebrickproductions), this deserves a new thread as it was drifting too off topic. I didn't want to put this in Error Reports as I don't think it is appropriate for that, may I suggest a new section for website discussion? Anyways, I don't want to turn this into a flame war, we don't need to start a flame war but I don't think that means we can't discuss this. Just to make life easier and because I really wanted to post this, I'm just going to copy and paste the post that I was originally going to make.______________________________________________________________________________________

TommyBNSF wrote:

ToledoRailfan wrote: Again, I never said that the site has to be exactly (keyword: exactly) like it was when Mike was running the site. I'm not sure if you're not reading what I typed or what. Yes older crossings are less common than they were back then which is why I also think we shouldn't be as selective like it was. But being less selective isn't the same as just flat out documenting every crossing that we can find. And who said a crossing is unique just based on it's equipment? I think we need to make this site quality over quantity again. A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

Who said we're expecting a different result? So far, you've been the only one strongly against David and I's style.

I can think of two people who have agreed with me. Not sure to what extent but they have agreed with certain things I've said about this in the past.

TommyBNSF wrote:Do you really want David and I to remove our years of hard work to this site just because you don't like standard crossings? That's an insult to what we've done over the years, especially since unlike Mike, we both have jobs that preoccupy much of our time, so the time we spend documenting crossings and finding all relevant information about it is more valuable.

This shouldn't be about hard work. I personally think you should transfer pages to a new site associated with Mike's Railroad Crossing forum but that's just my idea. And if you didn't document every crossing just because it's a crossing that you can physically document, you wouldn't have to put such hard work into the site. And you can maybe spend more time making sure there aren't any issues/errors with any of the pages before they go live. And you could also maybe spend more time and effort into adding a little more character into each page, I understand that (about character) might come across as too vague or broad. Kinda self explanatory I guess.

TommyBNSF wrote:As far as I see it, the crossing community has gotten much bigger we started our involvement with the site. Maybe not directly with the site, but especially on Youtube, the community has grown much larger, and much of those people have discovered this site and have appreciated what we have done.

Both of your channels are pretty popular, I think the growth in the community because of you and David is from your Youtube channels, not the site.

TommyBNSF wrote:That's an insult to what we've done over the years,

I don't see why it should be taken as an insult... I don't expect either one of you to just blindly make the changes that I'd like to see done to the site.

Moved it to Forum Discussion & News, as it fits a bit better here. I'll chat with the other admins about possibly changing the name of this section to Forum/Website Discussion & News.

ToledoRailfan wrote:

TommyBNSF wrote:

ToledoRailfan wrote: Again, I never said that the site has to be exactly (keyword: exactly) like it was when Mike was running the site. I'm not sure if you're not reading what I typed or what. Yes older crossings are less common than they were back then which is why I also think we shouldn't be as selective like it was. But being less selective isn't the same as just flat out documenting every crossing that we can find. And who said a crossing is unique just based on it's equipment? I think we need to make this site quality over quantity again. A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

Who said we're expecting a different result? So far, you've been the only one strongly against David and I's style.

I can think of two people who have agreed with me. Not sure to what extent but they have agreed with certain things I've said about this in the past.

Well, you're certainly the most vocal and passionate about these changes (which isn't a bad quality to have, especially if you want to become a political activist (or activist in general)), but I don't think the others care to much. Though I do want to say that Paul has expressed that we should prioritize older & more interesting crossings in being uploaded to the site over more standard equipment, and I can't say I actively disagree with him on that.

R.I.P. HMCR 8933; 1951-2013. Hasn't been moved since it was put next to Huntsville High School in 2015.

Send me or any other admin a PM/e-mail if you want to submit crossing photos to the site!

I may have been getting a little personal about how I view the site, so if I came off like a jerk, I apologize.

I know my pages can a little too standardized at times, but that's just my character. I'm a more data oriented kind of person vs. a creative type. It's visible here and on my Youtube channel. It's embedded in me, and it's hard to get out of that. I think David is more of the creative type than me.

I'm open to ideas about how to make the older crossings more visible and give them more spotlight than regular crossings, but at the same time, keep the regular crossings on as so they can still be documented. I don't think making another website just for that is a good idea, especially with a niche hobby like ours.

TommyBNSF wrote:I may have been getting a little personal about how I view the site, so if I came off like a jerk, I apologize.

I know my pages can a little too standardized at times, but that's just my character. I'm a more data oriented kind of person vs. a creative type. It's visible here and on my Youtube channel. It's embedded in me, and it's hard to get out of that. I think David is more of the creative type than me.

I'm open to ideas about how to make the older crossings more visible and give them more spotlight than regular crossings, but at the same time, keep the regular crossings on as so they can still be documented. I don't think making another website just for that is a good idea, especially with a niche hobby like ours.

I'm thinking a good way to be able to find older crossings easier is to provide a search feature where we can look for crossings with particular equipment.

freebrickproductions wrote:Moved it to Forum Discussion & News, as it fits a bit better here. I'll chat with the other admins about possibly changing the name of this section to Forum/Website Discussion & News.

Renamed "Website News" and "Forum Discussion & News" to Website/Forum News" and "Website/Forum Discussion" respectively, so y'all should have a clearer idea of where to put certain topics now.

Also, another idea that might be good to implement is a map of the crossings (or at least the signalized crossings and any crossbuck crossings on the site) along a line/railroad, and then have the line name(s) listed on the pages for crossings link to a page for that map (or the map itself). Of course, given all that we admins have to do for an update, it'd just be more work on our ends, especially when it comes to creating new maps for each new line we've visited. There's also the point that lines that only have one (signalized) crossing wouldn't really need a map. But if this is implemented, I'm thinking of gathering a group of y'all together just to map the crossings on these lines so that it'd reduce the amount of work that we have to do, so updates wouldn't be even slower.

I honestly don't see the point in changing the site from a creative blogy type informative website that was the labor of love made by someone who tragically died of cancer to just a self gratification data website that'd be more useful to railroad employees than it would be for normal people who just like embracing their unusual hobby by following the site and contributing to the site. Just my

The thing I'm trying to understand is what the problem with having common crossings on the site is. Is it just the frequency with which they appear or is it that they're on the site to begin with? Even looking back through some of the crossings that Hickok photographed, they would've been considered "common" back when he took pictures of them, and his style of pages weren't all that different to me and David's (aside from my use of tables at the top of the page). I can understand why you think my pages can lack character, but again, that's just my style. Hickok was more of a story teller than I am.

Believe me, this site has sentimental value to me too, as this website is what helped accelerate my interest in railroad crossings. I wanted to help keep this site going and not see it die off, and it does me pain to see that some people think I'm not doing the right thing. Mike's stuff will always be here, there's no changing that, but I still wanted to supply new pictures of new areas to help keep interest in the site going, and maybe I've gone overboard, but if I'm good at doing something, I tend to do it a lot.

I don't have a problem with common crossings in general, but I think there is just way too much. And I don't really see the point in seeing the same thing over and over again. It also gives the site a very over crowded look (mostly in Ohio, Illinois, and Alabama and maybe a few others two a lesser extent), something that really didn't exist on the site to this extent only less than three years ago. It just feels like a completely different site. And sense you guys put so much effort into making large quantities of pages, you guys tend to miss errors a lot and they tend to go unfixed for a while or never get fixed period, that kinda goes back to the quality over quantity thing that I've been saying.

Instead of simply removing most of the pages that you and David had created over the past three years, I think we could just make a new section for them (most, but not all) on the site and have them separate from the "main" section of the site. The main section could just be for crossings that are interesting or worth making a page for (kinda how it use to be) while the new section could just be more of a database type thing. I probably wouldn't use or visit that section much as it wouldn't be my cup of tea as I of coarse prefer the more traditional pages, but some of you guys would probably enjoy the data base type thing section. Doing that would be more of an addition to the site as opposed to completely changing something.